


What Would I Ever Do Without You?

by theatergirl06



Series: Quarantine Nightmares [4]
Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: F/F, Fluffy Ending, Have some KatAnna angst my friends., This may be my favorite fic I've ever written, i love it so much!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:48:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23416993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theatergirl06/pseuds/theatergirl06
Summary: It only takes four nights for the screams in the queens' apartment to come from the most unexpected place of all, and Katherine Howard is determined to help. But there may be more emotional damage than even she could imagine.
Relationships: Anne of Cleves/Katherine Howard
Series: Quarantine Nightmares [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1682281
Comments: 6
Kudos: 94





	What Would I Ever Do Without You?

Three days and three nights of the stay-at-home order had put every single queen on edge. The fourth day of quarantine had more fights in it than the entirety of the last two weeks. Everywhere you looked, it seemed like you could find two queens bickering. There was Anne and Catherine, having an all-out screaming war because Catherine had suggested that Anne try to clean her room, which had somehow turned into yelling at one another about who was the worse parent. After Cathy had come out of Catherine’s room to tell them to please quiet down because they had woken her up, both queens had snapped at her to shut up, leaving Jane to yell at them for being so harsh. This entire exchange had brought a very grumpy Kat and Anna out of bed, and neither of them were too pleased to find that all of the coffee was gone. That was the first fight, and the biggest, but small arguments filled the rest of the day. 

Cathy and Anna had fought because Anna had run up and down the stairs, which Cathy claimed disrupted her writing. Anne and Jane had fought because Anne had tried to make herself a smoothie and made a mess in the kitchen, but as she pointed out, she’d only done so because Jane had forgotten to make lunch. This led to Jane yelling to the entire apartment that she was tired of automatically being the one to do the cooking, and her storming into her bedroom and slamming the door shut.

At that moment, Anna and Katherine had come sliding down the banister, leading both of them to get yelled at by Catherine for being childish and irresponsible, to which Anna responded that “stepping was too loud for Cathy, so they had to slide.” Cathy had popped out of her room and started yelling, too. 

Needless to say, by the time dinner was over, none of the queens were in a very good mood, but at the suggestion of a movie, they all agreed, and a silent pact was made to forget all of today’s fights. 

Still, Katherine Howard was notably more exhausted than usual as she went to bed. All the yelling and screaming had given her a headache, and she couldn’t wait to get some sleep. She planned on baking some cookies for Jane tomorrow, and she wanted to make them fancy, so she needed all of her energy to do that.

But the day’s fights had put her a little on edge, and she had a feeling that this would be a night she wouldn’t sleep through. She went to bed prepared to be woken up, probably by Anne causing some sort of trouble, and though she really didn’t want to be woken up at all, she had resigned herself to helping her cousin with whatever mischief she managed to get herself into. 

When she fell asleep, she expected to be woken up around midnight. 

But she was still shocked when, when midnight came, she was awoken by screams piercing the night air. That in itself wasn’t too unusual in their apartment, but though they had come from an odd place last night, tonight they were coming from the most unexpected place possible. 

Katherine recognized her girlfriend’s yells even in sleep, and sat bolt upright in her bed. Before she could even move, more screaming came through the wall. But this screaming brought another surprise, as though the mere fact of who was screaming wasn’t surprising enough.

Anna was screaming actual words. 

None of the other queens had done that before. 

Katherine was already moving to wake her up, but she couldn’t unhear the words that kept coming through her walls.

“No, please! Don’t hurt her!” 

“I couldn’t  _ do  _ anything!”

“Someone help!” 

Katherine felt her heart beating fast as she rushed into Anna’s room and shook her girlfriend as hard as she could while still being gentle.

“Anna, wake up!”

Anna sat bolt upright in her bed, clearly covered in cold sweat, causing Katherine to jump backwards to avoid being accidentally smacked. It took the German queen a second to get her bearings, but once she did and she saw Katherine, her face went very, very red very quickly. Katherine pretended not to notice. 

“What happened?”

“You really don’t remember? You were screaming in your sleep.”

“Was I? What did I say?”

This immediately clued Katherine in on the fact that Anna was hiding something. Anna was the first queen to scream words in her sleep, and Katherine had yet to tell her that she had, leading Katherine to come to the conclusion that Anna remembered more than she was letting on. To be fair, Anna wasn’t exactly being subtle, so she probably would’ve come to that conclusion anyway.

“Um...you said ‘No, please, don’t hurt her,’ and ‘I couldn’t  _ do  _ anything,’ and ‘someone help.’” 

Katherine hadn’t thought Anna’s face could blush any harder, but at that moment, it did. The fourth queen was usually much better at hiding her emotions, but it was the middle of the night and she was badly shaken. Still, Katherine decided that letting her wait until she was ready to tell her the truth was the best course of action. Pressuring Anna to share her emotions never worked.

“Don’t worry about me, liebling. I was dreaming about a lost puppy that Jane wouldn’t let me help. Just my subconscious telling me how much I want a dog.” Anna laughed. It almost sounded real, but Katherine could still tell that the “queen of the castle” wasn’t telling the truth. 

“All right, love, if that’s really all it is, I’m gonna go back to bed.”

“Go right ahead.”

Katherine took one glance back as she left the room, but Anna had already rolled over and fallen back asleep. Though the fifth queen closed both Anna’s door and her own behind her, she didn’t go back to sleep. This wasn’t over. So she sat with her back to the door and listened. 

Twenty minutes later, there it was again. No words this time, just yelling. Katherine was on her feet the second the sounds began, but when she opened Anna’s door, the German queen was already sitting in bed, reading a book and looking deceptively calm. 

“What is it?”

“I heard you scream again.”

“Did I? Wow, I don’t remember anything.”

The beads of sweat on her forehead and the redness of her cheeks said otherwise.

But as much as Katherine didn’t want to see Anna suffer, she knew that she could only leave her nightmares behind by talking about whatever was causing them. And though she wasn’t sure how to get her to do that, Katherine really did believe that pressure wasn’t the right way. So, bidding Anna a second goodnight, she returned to her room and, just like before, sat right behind the door, promising that next time, she wouldn’t leave again. Enough was enough. 

It only took ten minutes this time for the screams to start again. Loud and clear, sentence after sentence of pain. 

“I’m begging you, please!”

“She doesn’t deserve this!”

“Please, I’ll give you anything, you can take me instead!”

“I’ve already lost her once, I won’t lose her again!”

Already at Anna’s door by the time she heard the last sentence, Katherine froze. There was another sound in that scream. 

Anna of Cleves was crying.

And not just crying. Sobbing and screaming and fighting in a way that no one had ever seen her before. Not even close. 

When Katherine opened the door, the German queen was staring right at her, glassy-eyed, tears streaming down her cheeks. She clearly didn’t recognize who Katherine was, and the second she registered her presence, she threw her arms up in front of her face in self-defense.

“Please. Not now. Not yet.”

Unsure of what to do, Katherine felt her body freeze. Things like this weren’t unheard of in the queens’ apartment, but Katherine had yet to help someone with theirs, and she knew the solution was different for every queen, and Anna was undoubtedly the trickiest of all.

Katherine Howard was very sure that she was going to mess this up.

But that wasn’t going to stop her from trying. 

She decided to play along.

“Ssh, it’s all right. I’m not here to hurt her.”

Anna slowly pulled her hands back from her face and looked skeptically at Katherine.

“You’re not?”

“No. I’m...going to take you somewhere safe. Somewhere they can’t find you. How does that sound?”

“Good.” 

“Good. Alright, are you okay taking my hand?”

“I guess so.”

Katherine had to work very hard not to cry herself. Seeing the German queen, usually so strong, like this, scared and trembling, almost like a child...well, it broke her heart. She took Anna’s hand, and led her through her own room to her balcony. There was no furniture, seeing as she never used it, so she grabbed one of the pillows from her bed and set it down. She wasn’t completely sure the balcony would work, but she knew that Anna loved the outdoors, and thought the night air might do something to help. 

Tentatively, Katherine let go of Anna’s hand. The second she did, the fourth queen’s eyes glassed over again, and she began to speak. She wasn’t screaming anymore, but tears were streaming down her face again, and her voice shook with every word. 

“Please, you don’t understand. I love her so much, I’ve never loved anything else. I don’t know what I would do without her. She’s suffered so much, and it was all my fault, and it’s just...I’ve already lost her once, and…”

“You can’t lose her again.”

Anna stared at her. “Yeah.” 

Katherine wasn’t sure what to say next, so she pulled her girlfriend into a tight hug. She could feel the shoulder of her hoodie soaking with tears, but she didn’t pull away. She just held the woman she loved. 

After some time (neither queen was keeping track), Anna finally pulled away from the hug. She stared at Katherine with a look in her eyes that Katherine, for all her emotional skills, could not identify. But when Anna spoke, her voice was full of embarrassment, gratefulness, fear, grief, and hope, all at once.

“Kat?”

Katherine tied and failed to stop the tears of joy and relief from streaming down her face. She could feel all the adrenaline and stress of the last hour or so draining out of her.

“You know who I am?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

Katherine wasn’t sure how much she could push now that she had Anna back in the present. “How much do you remember?”

“All of it.” 

A pause. Then, “Who can’t you lose again?”

Anna sighed, but said nothing. Though she’d come out of her dream, she was clearly shaken, and the way she wrapped her arms around her chest as if to protect herself made that fact all the more clear. 

“And don’t tell me it’s a dog, because I didn’t even believe that the first time.”

Anna laughed, but the smile faded from her face just as quickly as it had appeared. She turned suddenly and cupped Katherine’s face in her hands. Katherine was a little startled, but didn’t pull away.

“I couldn’t lose  _ you _ .”

Katherine wasn’t sure what she’d expected to hear. This wasn’t it, but it didn’t shock her either. 

“What happened to make you so scared?”

Anna sighed, and the strength she’d been using to hold herself up seeped out of her. She leaned sideways into Katherine’s shoulder. Gently, Katherine put her hand on her head and began gently stroking her hair. Normally, their positions would be reversed, but Anna didn’t seem to mind. 

“I had a dream. You and I were on a date. It was gorgeous. We were in the mountains, and you were complaining about the cold because you’re a wimp who can’t stand weather.”

“You have an unnaturally warm body temperature!”

“Are you saying I’m hot, liebling?”

“You are. You’re also avoiding telling me what happened.”

Anna groaned. Katherine still couldn’t get over how vulnerable she looked.

“We were in the mountains, and it was...like a fairytale. The snow was everywhere, and you were laughing, and I was just so happy.”

“That sounds nice.”

“Well, it didn’t stay that way. I heard you scream. I remember my blood freezing over. And he...he was there, holding an axe to your throat.”

“Henry?”

“Yeah. I ran at him, but these two guys grabbed me from behind. He pressed the axe into your neck, and...I just felt myself break. And then we were somewhere else. A dungeon. I was trapped behind these bars, and you had your hands tied behind your back. You were crying. And then he raised the axe.” Anna paused. “Am I scaring you? Do you feel alright.”

“I’m alright. Go on.”

“All right. When he started swinging the axe, I started begging. I couldn’t think of anything else to do. Then he looked at me, and he…” Anna began to breathe faster and harder,. Katherine put her arm around the German queen’s shoulders and squeezed gently. “He said it was my fault you’d died the first time, and it was my fault you were there now. I said I couldn’t do anything. And then you looked at me. You were in so much pain, and I knew in my heart that I’d caused it all. I started screaming for help. And then you woke me up. The first time.”

Anna was crying again, and Katherine felt tears streaming down her own face, too. “Babe, why didn’t you tell me?”

Anna took a deep breath. “How could I? You’ve been through so much, and as much as I want to help you, so much of that was because of me. How can I dump all of my guilt on you? You don’t deserve my pain. I just thought that if I could hide it, pretend it wasn’t happening, you wouldn’t notice.”

“I knew you were lying.”

“I know you did. I’m a horrible liar when I’m tired.”

“That didn’t seem to stop you.”

“No. The second I fell back asleep, there was an axe on my neck. I was screaming from pain that time, but I woke up just in time to try and hide it from you.”

“Which didn’t work.” 

“Right. But after that…” Anna took a deep breath and then continued. “I was back in the dungeon. You were screaming in pain. All I could think about was how to get to you. I screamed and I begged, but all you did was scream more. When I tried to run to you, you pushed me away. You looked at me like you hated me, and it hurt so much, because I knew you had every right to. Two guards came to take me away, and I knew that you sent them. But I didn’t stop begging for your life. I didn’t realize how distressed I was until they left, and I just...broke down. I’ve never broken down before, but in that dream, I did. And when I woke up...I didn’t stop.” 

Katherine found herself at a loss for words, so she just hugged Anna again. Talking about the nightmare had made her uneasy, and the fourth queen was shaking in her arms.

“I’m...I’m so sorry you had to hear all that, liebling. It’s my problem. It’s my fault you died and went through so much, and now here I am, making you help me get over your problems that I caused. I’m just the worst person who’s ever…” 

Before Anna could finish her sentence, Katherine kissed her. Gently and passionately and delicately, like a snowflake frozen in time. 

When they broke apart, Katherine grabbed both of Anna’s hands and looked her straight in the eyes. 

“Anna of Cleves, I want you to listen very carefully to me when I say this. Just because you happened to survive doesn’t mean you had any more control over your life than the rest of us. You did not cause the end of your marriage, nor the beginning of mine. I don’t blame you for my death, I never have.”

“But _ I  _ do.”

“You’re wrong, Anna. I wish you could see that. But if you can’t, hear me say this. You have saved me a million times. In both lives. When I was locked in the tower, I thought my misery was going to kill me. I woke up screaming every night, and I almost killed myself a million times. But I knew I had a real friend, someone who cared about me. And that kept me sane. The night before I was beheaded…” Katherine paused. “I heard you calling my name outside the tower. I couldn’t call back to you, or risk your life, but hearing your voice...it gave me happiness I never expected to find on the last night of my life.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely. And since we’ve come back, you’ve done the same. You’ve saved me from my nightmares more times than I can count. You gave me love before anyone else, at a time when I needed love to survive. You’re the first person I’ve ever been with...romantically...that gave me a healthy relationship. You taught me how to love.”

Anna smiled at her girlfriend. “Well, when you put it that way, I sound more like an angel.”

Katherine took her hand. “None of us are angels, Anna. But I would say that you’re the closest thing there is.”

Anna laughed. “Mein schatz, I adore you, but that is incredibly cheesy.”

“If you’re starting to say things like that, maybe we should go to bed.”

Anna’s smile faded off of her face in half a second. “Please, Kat. I know you’re exhausted, but...I’m not ready to go back to sleep. Can you stay with me?”

Katherine smiled. “Of course I can.”

“I don’t deserve you.”

“It’s not about who deserves who. I would say I don’t deserve you. I’m doing this because I love you.”

Anna froze. “You haven’t said that to me before.”   
“No, I haven’t. Because it’s a big thing for me, and it’s not something I throw around lightly when I’m dating someone.”

“But you said it to me.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Does that mean…”

“Yes, it does.”

“Oh.”

Another pause. The moon was high in the sky.

“Katherine?”

“Yes?”

“I love you too.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> OH I LOVE KATANNA SO MUCH!


End file.
